Food == Energy

This is another one of those ‘duh’ type of concepts. We all know that food is energy, but today I had a vivid example of that.

I normally workout with my trainer (Emily Cripe) at 6am on M/W/F at The Pro Club in Bellevue. Getting there that early requires me to be out of bed no later then 5:30am (I live only a couple of miles away). Last Friday, I did the 6am Indoor Cycling class (see my comments on this in my other blog) and at the end I was totally exhausted. I normally get through these without too many problems but for this one, we did some extended interval training with little recovery between peaks.

I had mentioned this to Emily afterwards and she asked about what I was eating before we worked out. I hadn’t been eating anything. I mean it’s hard enough to get to the gym by 6am, let alone find time to eat something before hand.

This morning (Wed 2/16/06) we agreed to do Indoor Cycling again instead of our normal routine but I decided to try and get some food before hand. I got up a few minutes early (5:20am) and downed a banana and a yogurt before leaving the house. Ganelle pushed us very hard in this session. We were doing ‘tempo’ riding. As I understand it the tempo rides is pushing yourself right below maximum and we kept it up without any breaks for the whole class. 15 mins of flat, 15 mins at a foothill grade, then 15 mins of a steep hill.

My heartrate training zone is between 135 and 162. In the Indoor cycling classes I usually pace myself around 155 to 160 and when out of the saddle on a steep hill I usually hit about 170.

On today’s ride I don’t think I came below 160 during the whole 45min period with most of it being spent around 170. About 30 mins into the ride I really started to feel exhausted. My breathing was very labored and I was concerned whether I was going to have to reduce my resistance or slow down. I kept pushing and about 40 mins into the class (just after we started to go up the really steep hill) I felt a very strong surge of energy. Even though I was out of the saddle and my heartrate was in the mid 170’s I felt a strong second wind. I felt like I could keep going at that intense pace for a long time.
I felt that my body was using the food now as energy. It was an awesome feeling! The only problem was that it came so late in the class. I need to think about a way to get that food taken in earlier so I can feel the effects sooner in the class.